(Old) MediaShrink - An HTPC focused encoder

[hemicuda]

Ok, fair enough. I can handle things from here.

Now if I could figure out why your handbrakeCLI encoded it when my GUI version went belly-up.

Nice work on the App, BTW.

[rmac321]

EP,

Is there a possible way to tell MediaShrink which DVD titles to work with? I used the GUI version of Handbrake to do the DVD I had problems with below, but since then, I have had a couple other discs with similar problems, so I was hoping there was a way to tell MediaShrink the specific titles to shrink/encode.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by rmac321

EP,

First I want to say thanks for a great program. I've been compressing SageTV recordings for a couple weeks and it works great.

A couple days ago I started using the DVD functionality for some TV show DVDs. It has worked great with the exception of one disk where it pulled the longest file instead of the episodes. I ran it a second time with the same results. What makes this a little more problematic is that the way this DVD was read, the long file is only 3 of the 4 episodes, not all 4. I looked through the log and it appears that Handbrake found the 4 episodes (1, 2, 3 and 14), so the question is whether I can rerun and specify a switch to tell it which titles to work with, or do I need to learn how to use Handbrake and just do this particular DVD manually? I'm using beta 2a which I believe is the most current.

text from log:
- Scanning DVD for titles
+ Found Title 1 (43)
+ Found Title 2 (43)
+ Found Title 3 (43)
+ Found Title 4 (131)
+ Found Title 14 (43)
- Number of titles found = 10
+ 131 (1): Longest = 131 (1)
+ 43 (4)
+ 0 (5)

Thanks again for this great timesaver!



Update: I did try using the /DVDtitle switch, but it didn't get passed thru. I'll try the -t handbrakeCLI switch when the processor frees up. I went ahead and tried the Win GUI version of Handbrake and found it far less intimidating using the settings referenced in this thread.

[ChaOConnor]

Thanks again for such an awesome program! I have a question, a few DVDs I'm trying to convert (out of hundreds) fail on the second pass of Handbrake. I drag and drop the folder of the DVD rip, it goes through the first pass, then just hangs on the 100% of the first pass, never going to the second pass. Attached is, what I thought was the log, but it's just the output from MediaShrink. I'll have to re-run it tonight to generate a log (how do I do that again?) but I was hoping you could take a look at it and see if there is anything wrong from this file.

What's weird is, I've encoded the other 5 disks of the Lord of the Rings Extended edition (both movie disks for each of the films), but only Disk 1 of the Two Towers is failing. I have a few other odd movies that fail as well, but this one is really weird to me.

Thanks!

[grooves12]

Can someone help a noob out here? I'm just getting started on trying to rip my DVD collection... can anyone help me out with a step by step start to finish on how to get that done using this tool??

Do I need another app to rip the DVD to my hard drive first?
Is there any way to automate the process?? Maybe through the GUI like the burning is done with the videotools plugin?

[evilpenguin]

Use DVD decrypter to rip the DVD's into VIDEO_TS folders and then you can drag n' drop those onto MediaShrink.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by ChaOConnor

What's weird is, I've encoded the other 5 disks of the Lord of the Rings Extended edition (both movie disks for each of the films), but only Disk 1 of the Two Towers is failing. I have a few other odd movies that fail as well, but this one is really weird to me.

Thanks!

Looks like its just a Handbrake bug. Personally I only use /onePass and i've never had any problems.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by rmac321

EP,

Is there a possible way to tell MediaShrink which DVD titles to work with? I used the GUI version of Handbrake to do the DVD I had problems with below, but since then, I have had a couple other discs with similar problems, so I was hoping there was a way to tell MediaShrink the specific titles to shrink/encode.

Thanks!

Yeah, there are a few cases where my Title detection code doesn't work...

/foreceTitle 1,2,3

should do what you're looking for.

[evilpenguin]

FYI, I've been remodeling my office for the last month so I don't really have access to my dev PC so I'm not very useful right now.

[rmac321]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, there are a few cases where my Title detection code doesn't work...

/foreceTitle 1,2,3

should do what you're looking for.

EP, Thanks. That's what I needed. Just for clarification, should I presume that the command is "forceTitle" and that the extra e was a typo?

[rsagetv99]

I am getting the "No Audio or Video" error trying to run mediashrink on a regular SD .mpg file, recorded from a hauppage 150 card. It is doing it on every one of the files that I throw at it.

Any ideas?

[gibsonpa]

Love this utility...have used it on over 150 dvd titles...works great.

Now my wife wants me to convert her TV series using it, but instead of the default logic where it splits each TV episode to a separate .mkv....she wants all the episodes (from a given disc of course) into one .mkv.

Is there a parm to prevent the separate .mkv per title/episode?

Thanks!!

[rmac321]

Originally Posted by gibsonpa

Now my wife wants me to convert her TV series using it, but instead of the default logic where it splits each TV episode to a separate .mkv....she wants all the episodes (from a given disc of course) into one .mkv.

Is there a parm to prevent the separate .mkv per title/episode?

Use the GUI version of handbrake to look at the times for each title to see which title you want and then use MediaShrink with the switch EP just gave us:

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, there are a few cases where my Title detection code doesn't work...

/foreceTitle 1,2,3

should do what you're looking for.

[gibsonpa]

Originally Posted by rmac321

Use the GUI version of handbrake to look at the times for each title to see which title you want and then use MediaShrink with the switch EP just gave us:

Thanks for the help....so the forcetitle switch tells this utility which titles to convert and creates a single .mkv for all forced titles?

[evilpenguin]

A lot of TV show DVD's have a long title that's all of the episodes on the disc played one after the other. If the DVD's have one of those you should be able to find it using the handbrage gui and use the /forceTitle switch to encode just that title.

However, i've run into a few that don't and getting those episodes all together could be a bit complicated. I can't think of a good way off the top of my head but if I think of something i'll let you know.

Originally Posted by gibsonpa

Love this utility...have used it on over 150 dvd titles...works great.

You may have me beat, I think i've only done about 125-130

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

I am getting the "No Audio or Video" error trying to run mediashrink on a regular SD .mpg file, recorded from a hauppage 150 card. It is doing it on every one of the files that I throw at it.

I should mention that I am running the utility via SJQ, instead of drag and drop. I just want to compress shows and maintain decent quality with the autoencode profile, I'm thinking that maybe my problem is the default command-line switches. What command-line switches should I use to minimize possible problems?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

I should mention that I am running the utility via SJQ, instead of drag and drop. I just want to compress shows and maintain decent quality with the autoencode profile, I'm thinking that maybe my problem is the default command-line switches. What command-line switches should I use to minimize possible problems?

Is this happening on one video or multiple?

[gibsonpa]

Thanks EP for the clarification on force title...I will try that out.

[rmac321]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

A lot of TV show DVD's have a long title that's all of the episodes on the disc played one after the other. If the DVD's have one of those you should be able to find it using the handbrage gui and use the /forceTitle switch to encode just that title.

However, i've run into a few that don't and getting those episodes all together could be a bit complicated. I can't think of a good way off the top of my head but if I think of something i'll let you know.

EP, thanks for pointing that out. I assumed he was referring to encoding the long title and didn't think about the case where the disk doesn't have a "play all" title.

The joiner function of VideoRedo does a great job of merging mpg's. Has the new version that can handle h264 files come out yet? If so, or when it does, he may be able to use the joiner to splice them together.

If you are still doing development work on Medashrink, would it be possible to call the joiner function of VideoRedo as an intermediate step before shrinking?

Otherwise, is there a MediaShrink switch that he could use to output mpgs that he could join together and then restart Mediashrink to compress them?

[rmac321]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Looks like its just a Handbrake bug. Personally I only use /onePass and i've never had any problems.

I just had this happen when I tried to use the /forceTitle switch for the first time. I think you are correct that it is a HandBrake bug. While the cmd window shows that HandBrake has reached 100.00%, if you look at the ETA, it reports 00h00m01s left. In my case I was trying to force a single title that I thought MediaShrink had missed the first time, but perhaps HandBrake is the reason I didn't get it when I did that disk a few days ago.

Originally Posted by ChaOConnor

Attached is, what I thought was the log, but it's just the output from MediaShrink. I'll have to re-run it tonight to generate a log (how do I do that again?) but I was hoping you could take a look at it and see if there is anything wrong from this file.

I think that is the correct log file. It looks like when you turn on /saveLog, Mediashrink doesn't create a file named MediaEngine.log, but instead creates a log fie named after the first file in the batch you are doing and stores it in that folder. EP can confirm this for us.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by bialio

I think you are right - the default profile looks like it gets applied after the command line.

I think I found a way around the issue - basically disabled the "convert 1080i to 720p" rule. Looks like it's doing the right thing this time.

btl.

bialio,

How did you do that... I recently started recording HD and I have the same problem but do not know where to disable it .... if you can post what you did.

Thanks